The Korea Herald

Monitors energize Syrian protests

HOMS, Syria (AP) ― The presence of Arab League monitors in Syria has re-energized the anti-government protest movement, with tens of thousands turning out over the past three days in cities and neighborhoods where the observers are expected to visit. The huge rallies have been met by lethal gunfire from security forces apparently worried about multiple mass sit-ins modeled after Cairo’s Tahrir Square.On Thursday, security forces opened fire on tens of thousands protesting outside a mosque in a D

Dec. 30, 2011

Japan ups sales tax to reduce debt

Japan’s ruling party compromised on a plan to double the sales tax by 2015 to help reduce the world’s largest public debt, delaying implementation by six months to help lawmakers meet a campaign pledge. The proposal by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda would raise the sales tax from 5 percent to 8 percent in April 2014 and to 10 percent in October 2015. The agreement, reached late yesterday, must be approved by a government panel led by Finance Minister Jun Azumi before discussion with the oppositio

Dec. 30, 2011

Monti warns of ongoing market turbulence

ROME (AP) ― Italy’s borrowing costs fell for a second day Thursday but the country’s new premier said his government has more to do before it convinces financial markets it can manage the heavy debts that have made it the focus of the eurozone crisis.Mario Monti said he was encouraged by the bond auctions at which the interest costs paid out by Italy to bond investors eased. He said his government of technocrats, in office for just a month and a half following the resignation of Silvio Berluscon

Dec. 30, 2011

Monti warns of ongoing market turbulence

Man, 99, seeks divorce over old affair

A 99-year-old Italian man filing for divorce from his 96-year-old wife said he found letters from an affair she had 50 years ago.The Rome man, a Sardinia native who has been married to his wife for 77 years, came across letters she sent to a former lover during the late 1950s, the ANSA news agency r

Dec. 30, 2011

Broom battle breaks out in birthplace of Jesus

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AP) ― The annual cleaning of one of Christianity’s holiest churches deteriorated into a brawl between rival clergy Wednesday, as dozens of monks feuding over sacred space at the Church of the Nativity battled each other with brooms until police intervened.The ancient church, built over the traditional site of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, is shared by three Christian denominations ― Roman Catholics, Armenians and Greek Orthodox. Wednesday’s fight erupted between Greek and Arme

Dec. 29, 2011

Saudi women to run, vote without male approval

RIYADH (AP) ― Women in Saudi Arabia will not need a male guardian’s approval to run or vote in municipal elections in 2015, when women will also run for office for the first time, a Saudi official said Wednesday.The change signifies a step forward in easing the kingdom’s restrictions against women, but it falls far short of what some Saudi reformers are calling for.Shura Council member Fahad al-Anzi was quoted in the state-run al-Watan newspaper saying that approval for women to run and vote cam

Dec. 29, 2011

Chinese lawyer goes on trial in dissent crackdown

BEIJING (AP) -- A former lawyer and veteran activist left disabled by past police mistreatment went on trial Thursday, the third dissident in a week to be prosecuted as China presses a sweeping crackdown to deter popular uprisings like the ones that shook the Arab world.Looking thin and frail, Ni Yulan lay on a bed and used an oxygen machine to help her breathe during the hearing, her daughter, Dong Xuan, said afterward. Dong said she told the court about her mother’s run-ins with police since 2

Dec. 29, 2011

On-going violence in Syria despite monitors

BEIRUT (AP) ― Arab League monitors gathered accounts about the Syrian government’s crackdown on dissent in the central city of Homs Wednesday as fresh violence flared just dozens of miles away. Activists said troops opened fire on thousands of unarmed protesters, killing at least six.Though President Bashar Assad’s regime has made concessions to the observers, including the release of nearly 800 prisoners, the military was pressing ahead with a campaign to put down mostly peaceful protests.In th

Dec. 29, 2011

Venezuela on track to top S. America in murder record

CARACAS (AFP) ― Venezuela is on track to set a new record murder rate and to remain South America’s most violent country, according to data released by a crime watchdog.The Venezuela Violence Monitor said Tuesday that 19,336 people had been murdered in 2011, an average of 53 per day in a country of 29 million.“We must inform the nation that 2011 will end as the most violent year in the nation’s history,” the group said in a press release.The group’s figures indicate that the rate of homicides cl

Dec. 29, 2011

Romney and Paul leading Iowa caucuses

WASHINGTON (AP) ― The months of turmoil among Republicans bidding to become the party nominee to challenge President Barack Obama head into a final sorting process in Iowa next week with Mitt Romney and Ron Paul leading a field of seven candidates.Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, and Paul, a long-serving Texas congressman, are running neck-and-neck in the Midwestern state that holds precinct nominating caucus meetings Tuesday night. The caucuses are a test of the campaign financing and

Dec. 29, 2011

Putin rejects calls to talk with protest leaders

MOSCOW (AP) ― Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Wednesday rejected calls to hold talks with opposition leaders who have brought tens of thousands of Russians into the streets to demand an end to his 12-year rule, saying he doesn’t know what the demonstrators want or who he would talk to.Putin has belittled the opposition even as his government has rolled out a set of proposed reforms in response to outrage over the Dec. 4 election for parliament, in which only Kremlin-approved parties were allowe

Dec. 29, 2011

Putin rejects calls to talk with protest leaders

U.S. warns Iran against closing oil passage

TEHRAN (AP) ― The U.S. strongly warned Iran on Wednesday against closing a vital Persian Gulf waterway that carries one-sixth of the world’s oil supply, after Iran threatened to choke off traffic through the Strait of Hormuz if Washington imposes sanctions targeting the country’s crude exports.The increasingly heated exchange raises new tensions in a standoff that has the potential to spark military reprisals and spike oil prices to levels that could batter an already fragile global economy.Iran

Dec. 29, 2011

U.S. warns Iran against closing oil passage

Massachusetts school bullying settlement disclosed

The family of a Massachusetts teen who killed herself allegedly because she was bullied in school got $225,000 from the town, the settlement document indicated.The document, disclosed Tuesday, indicated the South Hadley family of Phoebe Prince received the settlement in exchange for agreeing not to

Dec. 29, 2011

Chimp from 1930s Tarzan films dead at 80

Cheetah, a chimpanzee said to have performed in the "Tarzan" films of the 1930s, has died at the age of 80, according to the Florida sanctuary where he lived."It is with great sadness that the community has lost a dear friend and family member on December 24, 2011," the Suncoast Primate Sanctuary in

Dec. 29, 2011

Chimp from 1930s Tarzan films dead at 80

Mass protests in Syrian city as monitors arrive

BEIRUT (AP) ― Tens of thousands of defiant Syrian protesters thronged the streets of Homs Tuesday, calling for the execution of President Bashar Assad shortly after his army pulled its tanks back and allowed Arab League monitors in for the first time to the city at the heart of the anti-government uprising.The pullback was the first sign the regime was complying with the League’s plan to end the 9-month-old crackdown on mostly unarmed and peaceful protesters.Yet amateur video released by activis

Dec. 28, 2011

Shops shake mafia grip in Naples

NAPLES, Italy (AFP) ― In the gangster-ridden streets of Naples, any word against the Camorra mafia syndicate is dangerous.The rebellion by a group of shopkeepers against extortion is unprecedented.“The fear is huge because they threaten you, your shop, your family,” said Raffaele Ferrara, a grocer in the city center who lives in fear after he and around 300 others decided to say no this year after decades of oppression.“Every time someone with a suspicious face walks in, you think ‘this is it’,

Dec. 28, 2011

Foreign residents experiencing Korea’s growing pains of diversity

Brian had been living in Korea for just over three months when he encountered the unexpected. The ESL instructor, who asked that his last name be withheld, spent a night out with friends in the southern city of Busan and missed the last train home. He decided to go to the nearest “jimjilbang,” Korean sauna, to rest until morning. He found a convenient place with an English sign right next to Busan Station.“I asked in Korean if the place was a jimjilbang and made the sleeping motion with my hands

Dec. 28, 2011

Foreign residents experiencing Korea’s growing pains of diversity

Indian lawmakers debate anti-graft law

NEW DELHI (AP) ― Indian lawmakers fiercely debated sweeping anti-corruption legislation Tuesday while a protest leader began a three-day hunger strike demanding Parliament adopt his tougher proposals.The legislative showdown is the culmination of months of angry political debate and public protests that brought tens of thousands of middle-class Indians fed up with rampant corruption into the streets and put a government battered by scandals deeper on the defensive.Hoping to defuse activist Anna

Dec. 28, 2011

U.S. extradites war crimes suspect to Bosnia

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) ― The United States has extradited a Muslim Bosnian woman accused of killing Bosnian Croat civilians during the 1990s Bosnian War, authorities said Tuesday.The prosecutor’s office said Rasema Handanovic, 38, has arrived in Bosnia and will appear in front of judges Wednesday.Handanovic ― who has a son and parents in the U.S. ― was extradited a week after the U.S. handed over her alleged comrade Edin Dzeko, 39, who is accused of taking part in the same killings.Bo

Dec. 28, 2011

Iran seeks death for American accused of spying

TEHRAN (AP) ― An American man accused by Iran of working for the CIA could face the death penalty, the semiofficial Fars news agency reported Tuesday.In a closed court hearing, the prosecution applied for capital punishment, the report said, because the suspect, identified as Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, “admitted that he received training in the United States and planned to imply that Iran was involved in terrorist activities in foreign countries” after returning to the U.S.The prosecutor said Hekmati

Dec. 28, 2011